Posts from — November 2007

It’s starting to get cold here in Cincinnati and I’m already longing for the warm days of summer.1  I’ve wanted to share these for a while…me, Jim, Erica and some friends having some summer fun on fourth of July 2007.


<

1. A lovely stint in the Ft. Lauderdale sun for Thanksgiving with my mother in law just made me want summer more! [↩]

I think I’ve got it!  Thanks to Anne my fair isle is looking much more defined.  I posted this question over at the Autumn Rose Kal:  “When I look at other pictures, the section at the beginning of the sleeve with the diamond shapes in sunrise and madder seem much more defined than mine. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?!  I’m getting gauge now but it still looks funky to me.”  Anne’s response:  “Hi Cheryl.  I think your problem might be the position of your yarns — In Autumn Rose — the reds are the background and the golds are the pattern — If you are knitting two handed fair isle — hold the red (the background shade) in your right hand, and the pattern shade, the gold, in your left hand…..that way the pattern shade is always coming from underneath the background shade — it makes the pattern stitch ever so slightly larger and it stands out more.  If you’re working with both strands in one hand — just make sure that you’re always carrying the background shade above with the pattern shade carrying along below — never twisting if a piece of knitting is done with the yarns changing position — it does stand out — I was surprised the first time I saw this.” 

Of course she was right.  I had been experimenting with holding both yarns in the left, doing two hands, changing the position of which yarn was in which hand, etc.  It never occurred to me that this could be a problem.  Being consistent and having the pattern shade carried below the background makes all the difference.  In fact, by the time I got to the second repeat of the red stripe the patterning looked even better.  However, if you think I’m ripping out this sleeve yet again just so I can get the two red stripes looking perfect, you’re crazy!  I’m just happy to move on to the second one knowing it will look fabulous. 

I was knitting along on my Autumn Rose sleeve again yesterday excited to be past the corrugated rib.  The first few rows of alternating between two colors without having to purl was novel and fun.  As the sleeve lengthened, it occurred to me that the pattern was looking awful “smooshed” and not at all clear.  Hmm…wonder what that’s about?  Well, I never did a swatch.  Since I am a loose knitter I just figured I’d cast on with a #1 (pattern calls for 2 & 3) and undoubtedly be fine.  Besides, I really feel like a sleeve counts as a swatch.  If it works out just keep going and if it doesn’t you’re really no worse off that if you had knitted a real swatch.1  I checked my gauge after a couple of rows and all was it should be.  At some point in the sleeve I must have started getting use to the newness of fair isle patterning.  Seems knitting with two colors changes my tension into something that produces a fabric at 9 spi when it should have been 7.5.    So you know what happened next.  Looks better, doesn’t it? 

Next I’d like to give a shout out to Georgia Mountain Fiber.  Remember that free alpaca I got a while back? I finally decided that I would do it no justice by trying to wash and prepare it myself.   Now I have beautiful roving that looks as if it could practically spin itself.  It is so lofty it almost looks pre-drafted.  They did everything…picked, washed, carded, dehaired etc. all with an environmentally safe process.  Since I had a relatively small amount of fiber (3.6 pounds) they were able to process it and get it back to me in just a couple of weeks.  If I ever get lucky enough to score some more raw fiber I will definitely use them again.

1. Plus we all know the rule…gauge lies.  It also can change when knitting flat instead of round. [↩]

I didn’t feel much like a photo shoot today, so I’m going with the popular “headless shot”.  It’s my own raglan style pattern made with 6 skeins of Plymouth Suri Merino, color 2037.  I did keep very good notes and created a lace chart so I’m planning to write a pattern for it at some point.

In addition to being behind on my own blogging I’ve been behind on every one’s.  I’ve been slowly catching up and I ran into an “Autumn Rose” post by Claudia last week.  I was overcome with the need to make the sweater immediately.  Never mind that I have tons of fabulous yarn in my stash just waiting to be knit!  Never mind that I have never done fair isle (this hardly counts)!  I need specific wool that only Jamieson’s of Shetland can provide!  Better yet a kit!  Never mind that I myself am a purveyor of yarn and could decide to stock Jamieson!  I don’t care if it’s a little scratchy!  Must have wool now! 

It arrived yesterday and I now have this...the beginning of my first sleeve of my first fair isle sweater.  Corrugated rib is now the bane of my existence and apparently I am not the only one to ever feel this way.  Some even go as far as to say it is evil.  Now it seems that I have reached a point in my knitting world where I go on with very limited knowledge.  See…this book “Simply Shetland 4″ seems to believe that I possess in my little brain innate knowledge of fair isle charts.  I do not.  Based on this picture and my colorless chart, I can guess that I continue on in old gold and sunrise.  However, even knowing that made it difficult to figure out until I JUST NOW realized that the boxes to the right of the chart correspond to the colors even thought there are no boxes by the first few lines of the chart.  Had I looked ahead in the chart I would have realized that they expect a knowledgeable knitter to realize that the boxes extend to the repeats as well.  Whew…at least I can continue now.  If my sudden obsession with Autumn Rose happens to transmit to you, be sure to join the knit along.

PS I’m working to rebuild the gallery so previous posts may still show up sans pictures.  I’m going to get it all fixed again someday…or not.

I’ve hesitated to post this until I have a better picture but at this point that may never happen.  So…I give you the Circular Shrug of craftster fame.  In case you do not know of the craftster circular shrug, it was created as a collaborative effort at craftster.org.  Many permutations later it remains a popular pattern of choice amongst those looking for a simple shrug (as evidenced by many blog posts and Ravelry projects).   Although actually knitting it was INCREDIBLY boring (stst and mock rib until my eyes were crossed), I do like the finished product.  I may still decide to add sleeves though.

Yarn:  The Alpaca Yarn Co., Classic Alpaca in black
Needles:  US 5 

Since I actually finished it in October and was not the good little blogger I normally am I have no idea how many I cast on (120something?) or how many skeins I used.  I could go look and see how many skeins I have left but I’m too lazy to do it at the moment.  I’m just happy to finally be posting again.

Another finished object (along with more regular blogging again, I think) is coming very soon…maybe along with a new pattern.  I have still been knitting although totally enthralled with “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett.  There has been a buzz about it lately since the sequel just came out after a 14 year wait.  I loved it…was so glued that it only took me 4 day to finish (no easy feat at 991 pages).  I can’t wait to read “World Without End”.  Too bad the stuff I have been working on isn’t amenable to knitting and reading at the same time.  Reading hasn’t been keeping me from blogging but has kept my sanity intact as of late.

Ripped off from Uberstrickenfrau who ripped it off from Loopy Ewe….

Things I haven’t done this week:
1) written on the blog
2) done anything blog worthy  2) I actually have a new FO to present and just haven’t found the motivation to write about it
3) finished anything
4) have a positive attitude

Things I have done this week:
1) sit around a lot
2) eat a lot
3) worry a lot
4) wish I wasn’t in a customer service type job where I have to be held responsible for all my mess up’s
5) crave chocolate at all hours   5)  crave chocolate only some hours
6)  totally screwed up my gallery with an upgrade of Wordpress  (I am in the mood of Stephanie… “make blog go” running through my head…apparently my mad tech skills are also on the fritz)

Things I ought to have done this week:
1) done the things I should have
2) not done some of the things I did